Red John and the CBI
by Spontaneouschocolaterabbits
Summary: Red John finally decides to something about that pesky CBI team... Trigger warnings, death, psychological trauma; pretty strong stuff really.
1. Red John and Rigsby

**Disclaimer: I don't own The Mentalist.**

**Warning: Death.**

**Spoilers: None.**

**Author: Spontaneouschocolaterabbits **

**A/N: I know that the show is American and I'm sorry for any English/British spellings or phrases.**

**Please enjoy.**

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><p><strong><span>Red John and Rigsby<span>**

She'll come around eventually, he knows this for sure. One day she'll come bounding up to him with her red hair bouncing and her cute smile and she'll say what he wants to hear, but until that day he's content to wait.  
>They've got a new case. Standard jealousy murder, takes Jane less than an hour to find the killer.<p>

It's not the only thing he finds.

A small piece of white lined paper. Blank apart from a single red smiley face in the centre.

Red John's signature.

He's scared, but then so is everyone else. After all it's not everyday that a serial killer leaves you a note at a crime scene. Well it's only usually once every month anyway.  
>He's constantly on his guard, once Red John takes an interest in you then you're as good as dead. Although he's worried, it's not for himself, it's for her.<p>

Everyone knows Red John likes females better.

They're at the office, trying to ignore the fact that they're marked for death, when Jane gets a phone call.

It's a plea for help, from a little girl.

They trace it, rush out immediately and find themselves outside an old, rundown house. A window opens slightly, and he spots a flash of silver, the sunlight reflecting off some kind of metal object.

A sniper.

He tries to warn his team, but it's too late.  
>There's a small pop, and he hopes and prays that it's not her, anyone but her.<p>

He wonders why everyone has started looking at him. His legs buckle and he slips into darkness, he panics, as he remembers how he was so rushed.

How he forgot his bullet proof vest.

He wakes up in a clean white place that smells of disinfectant. His face wrinkles in disgust; a hospital.  
>The doctors tell him that he was shot, that the bullet just missed his heart and that he is lucky to be alive.<p>

He doesn't feel lucky.

He hurts like hell, and breathing, such an everyday, natural reflex is now a strenuous task. If only the bullet had been a few inches higher, then the torment would stop, he would finally be at peace.  
>But he can't give in, for her sake. He sees that the pain in her eyes mirrors his, only hers is emotional.<p>

He can't go until he knows for sure.

His breathing becomes laboured and heavy and the annoying beeping coming from a machine next to him speeds up. Spots appear in his eyesight as doctors and nurses rush frantically, trying to help, until they realise that he's to far gone, that there's nothing left that could help him now.

The team come in one by one, say a few words. The boss is close to hysterics, and even his usually emotionless best friend can't disguise his grief. Jane only nods, that one simple gesture filled with understanding and friendship.

Then she comes in, and he needs to do one last thing.

He leans over and quietly whispers three simple, beautiful words.

Tears fall down her face as she whispers the same words back.  
>He smiles, and stops struggling, because now he's heard those words he knows that he can die happy.<p>

And he does.


	2. Red John and Grace

**Disclaimer: ****I ****don't ****own ****The ****Mentalist.**  
><strong>Warning: <strong>**Death.**  
><strong>Spoilers: <strong>**None.**  
><strong>Author: <strong>**Spontaneouschocolaterabbits**

**A/N: The Mentalist is American and I apologise for any English/British spellings or phrases.**

**Please ****enjoy.**

* * *

><p><strong><span>Red John and Grace<span>**

At first all she can feel is pain, so much pain. He should be here with her, not lying cold in a morgue, or buried deep below the ground. Sympathetic smiles and hushed conversations, is that what her life has now become?  
>After a week or so the pain softly slips away, and suddenly she can't feel anything. Nothing but numbness, worthlessness and pointlessness.<p>

Her life is pointless.

The therapist disagrees, says she's amazing, fantastic, that her life has meaning. He tells her that it will pass, eventually, that she will be back to normal.

Not that she was ever normal in the first place.

She tries to listen to him, taking part in his stupid trust building exercises and going to his annoying sessions, but deep down she knows that she's right and he's wrong. All she wants to do is wipe that smug, condescending smile off his face.

So she takes a sharp knife, and oh so gently drags it across her wrist...

...and feels nothing but morbid curiosity and faint satisfaction at being proved right.

But when she tells him I told you so, and shows him the cuts, he doesn't react as she thought he would.  
>Instead he takes her to some sort of hospital, and shows her to a room. A person comes to speak to her. She has the same smug, condescending smile that he had, but they don't call her a therapist, they call her a psychiatrist. She's given rules, she can't go home, can't go to work, can't go outside.<p>

She's given medication.

The psychiatrist tells her that she's suffering from depression, and she snorts in disbelief. Depression is when you feel so sad, so melancholic, so depressed, that you don't want to live anymore right?

So why does she simply feel detached?

Slowly, bit by bit, her spirit disappears. She's a shell of the person she was before, she doesn't care when her colleague's visits become more and more rare, doesn't care when she stops eating and has to be forced, doesn't care when she's not allowed to go to his funeral.

Her body is still there but her spark of life is long gone.

She gets one last visit from a man she used to know, a man who can hypnotise people, play mind tricks, read minds.  
>But he can't tell what she's thinking...<p>

...because she's thinking nothing at all.


	3. Red John and Cho

**Disclaimer: I don't own The Mentalist.**

**Warning: Death.**

**Spoilers: None.**

**Author: Spontaneouschocolaterabbits **

**A/N: I know that the show is American and I'm sorry for any English/British spellings or phrases.**

**Please enjoy.**

* * *

><p><strong><span>Red John and Cho<span>**

His two best friends are gone, and he doesn't know how to react. Emotions are hard for him at the best of times, but now he feels sad, angry, resentful, relieved, depressed, guilty.

How is he meant to put on a brave face when inside he wishes he could just lie in bed and never get up?

He has to pretend that everything is okay, for the sake of his boss. Sometimes he catches her staring out of the window with such melancholic longing that it breaks his heart, but when he asks she just dismisses him. He does the same thing, only he somehow thinks that they're looking for different people.  
>They try to slip back into their old routine, solving murders and arresting scum, but it feels wrong with just the three of them doing work for what should be a five person team.<br>Their superiors did offer them new recruits but they flat out refused, although they could do with the help.

Especially when they learn of a new serial killer; a Red John wannabe who doesn't like to get his hands dirty and has a special fondness for cops.  
>He's rumoured to be under the very nose of the head of the FBI herself.<p>

Until word comes through that it's not the FBI but the CBI.

Suddenly in a once very close and friendly workplace, trust is replaced by fear and friendships are broken. He doesn't get what the problem is; can't they just get Jane to find out who it is?

Not that Jane's exactly in any fit state to work at the moment.

One day his boss comes in, he goes to speak to her as usual but her expression stops him before he even says a word. He knows there's something wrong, he can see it in her eyes.

Her accusing eyes.

She softly tells him how they've made progress on the serial killer case. How they've found some new evidence.

Some new highly discriminating evidence, against him.

He goes through hours and hours of long gruelling interrogation in which he tells nothing but the truth, and yet they still don't believe him. He's starting to get desperate now, with a crime as big as this there's usually only one method of punishment.

The death penalty.

They lead him to a room, lie him down and tell him what they're going to do; administer an injection.

A lethal injection, the last thing he'll ever feel.

As he feels the life draining out of him, he wonders, briefly, whether he'll see his partner on the other side.


	4. Red John and Lisbon

**Disclaimer: I don't own The Mentalist.**  
><strong>Warning: Death.<strong>  
><strong>Spoilers: None.<strong>  
><strong>Author: Spontaneouschocolaterabbits<strong>

**A/N: The Mentalist is American and I apologise for any English/British spellings or phrases.**

**Please enjoy.**

* * *

><p><strong><span>Red John and Lisbon<span>**

It's late at night and she's in the same old routine; eating food, watching tv, doing paperwork. She's half asleep from the tedious monotony, but a noise jerks her awake, and when she cautiously opens her eyes, he's there.

Red John.

She doesn't know how he got in, doesn't care. There are bigger things to worry about than a busted lock, or a broken window.  
>He's brought company, a burly looking, gangster of a man, all tattoos and muscles. The kind of man you'd warn your kids to stay away from.<br>But she barely glances at him, because Red John stares at her, a deep, soul-searching stare, that makes her want to confess all her secrets, and stay in those beautiful eyes forever. That's when she begins to get scared, because she's only seen one other person stare like that, and that person was Mr. Patrick Jane.  
>He pulls out a knife, a thing of beauty; it entrances her, as shadows dance on the deadly metal blade.<br>She knows what's coming, knows what he will say, and what she will reply.

And that's what scares her most.

She finds herself drawn to the glinting blade, but she shakes her head, mentally berating herself for getting distracted by an object of death, when she's meant to be thinking about what could possibly turn out be her own.  
>A minute of silence, of hurried, frenzied thought, and she has made her decision; and Red John has made his.<br>He laughs, a maniacal laugh full of death and dark mocking, and the knife plunges, not once, not twice, but three times into soft human flesh.  
>She feels disgusted, horrified, scared, and yet at the same time, oddly calm.<p>

The world starts to spin, as warm, red liquid oozes through her fingers.

Using the last of her strength, she painstakingly writes on the floor in blood, and Red John watches, understanding the need to leave something behind, to tell Jane that she doesn't blame him, and that she never will. Her eyes close, and she realises that her life will now end...

And her new life will begin.

Red John offers her his arm, and she takes it. They walk out of her apartment and into the cold night air, neither of them looking back at the murdered man lying on the floor, or the message written in blood beside him:

_'I'm sorry Jane, I don't blame you, but you should have seen it coming. Did you really believe I could resist a manipulative, charming, unpredictable mentalist?'_


	5. Red John and Jane

**Disclaimer: I don't own The Mentalist.  
><strong>**Warning: Death.  
><strong>**Spoilers: None.  
><strong>**Author: Spontaneouschocolaterabbits **

**A/N: The Mentalist is American and I apologise for any English/British spellings or phrases.**

**Please enjoy.**

* * *

><p><strong><span>Red John and Jane<span>**

And, like that, he's alone once again.

He's seen so many deaths, so many murders and yet, even after what happened so many years ago, he was unprepared for the death of his four colleagues.

Not colleagues, but friends, family.

Although, he supposes, they're not all technically dead. He's not sure if that makes him feel better or worse.

His superiors tell him to take an extended compassionate leave, and maybe even get a different job. It would be good for him to spend some time off, get away from it all. He disagrees of course. Where better than the CBI to catch the killer of both his old and new families?

So he's at work, doing nothing but playing on his computer, because how can he go out and work with unfamiliar faces without feeling like he's betraying them?

He can't even bring himself to lie on his old coach.

A beep breaks his train of thought. An email from someone called Jonathan Scarlet. As his mind whirs and the pieces fall into place, he nearly calls the team over to look, before reality sinks in, and he remembers. There's no-one left but him.

One dead, one broken, one framed and one lured away.

He tentatively opens the message, fearing what he might find.

_'Dear Patrick,  
><em>_I'm sorry to hear about your losses, but still, life goes on. I'm sure in time you'll find new friends, more people to put in danger. I'm not going to get rid of you of course, because that would be too easy, for both of us. You'll feel much more pain this way, and it's a lot more fun for me. Maybe one day you might actually find me, though I fear that when that time comes, we won't both walk out of it unscathed.  
><em>_Ciao  
><em>_R.J  
><em>_P.S Thanks for giving me such a delightful young woman. Now I realise why you liked her so much.'_

He sits back in his chair, barely containing the fury coursing through his body. How he wishes that he could just show someone the email, get it traced and catch, no kill, Red John.

If only.

The post script is obviously a warning; tell anyone and she gets hurt. His former boss might have betrayed him but he can't put her in danger.

As if she's not in enough danger living with a serial killer.

So he closes his eyes and vows, for Lisbon, Grace, Rigsby, Cho, his wife Angela and his daughter Charlotte, that he will get Red John.

Whatever it takes.


End file.
